Toronto puts holes in Red Wings to win 5-2

 Nicholas Shore #26 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his first period goal with teammates Jake Muzzin #8, Dmytro Timashov #41, Justin Holl #3 and Frederik Gauthier #33 during an NHL game against the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena on October 12, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)

Detroit let the Toronto Maple Leafs get out of hand at Little Caesars Arena Saturday night. Breakdowns on defense, penalties, and turnovers helped them take a 5-2 win from the Red Wings. Five different scorers contributed to ripping apart a three-game losing streak.

The Red Wings victory against Montreal put them in a great position to begin the season which didn’t see them at this point. With the Maple Leafs visiting Detroit and sitting with a three-game slide, their top line hoped to continue producing with support from the other three. Their recent home loss to the Lightning which they went down 7-3 leaves them with the notion that their best offensive pieces had to overcome the slump and take down their Original Six rival.

They had two early chances with Jimmy Howard refusing to stop the puck near the crease. A second occurrence left the puck loose where Toronto nearly found their chance to strike but the Red Wings iced it to regroup quickly. Justin Abdelkader got the best offensive play going running around with the puck behind the Toronto net where Frederik Andersen stood.

A pass out to the blue line where teammate Patrik Nameth shot the one-timer. Jacob de la Rose was at the net where he got a piece of it with his stick flat on the ice to get it into the net for his first of the season. Toronto picked up the pace of their lines and worked to break Howard and the Detroit defense. With plenty of moves to make their moment count, a play came where help from Dmytro Timashov gave Nick Shore the open net to Howard’s right to tie the game at one-all

Toronto gained the first power play that almost went sour for them with the Red Wings running away with the puck instead of clearing it. They had a shorthanded opportunity but Toronto managed to shut them down. It took time away from producing pucks to the Detroit net leading to its demise. Another came when Kasperi Kapanen took a stick to the face putting the Red Wings down a man with four minutes to go. Detroit’s PK took care of business with Howard making some kick saves to end the penalty. Man to man coverage helped them bring the period to a close despite being outshot 12-9.

In the first minute of the second stanza, Detroit caught a break to go on the man advantage but the Toronto PK did enough to stop them in their tracks. Through the next seven minutes, both teams had four shots on goal but no significant scoring chances. Things changed during the last half of the period as the Maple Leafs added pressure the Red Wings defense who were at times running out of steam to keep up.

The Toronto offense kept coming at Howard but his efforts paid off including a sharp save from Shore to prevent giving him another one. Andersen was in fine form at his net with the defense doing most of the work. During the last minute of play, a decision from Howard went south quickly as he decided to try and singlehandedly stop Ilya Mikeyev from scoring.

Timing out his attack incorrectly left the net wide open for the right-winger freshman to notch his second and give Toronto the lead after 40 minutes. The momentum that the Maple Leafs carried going into the decider had the Red Wings needing the positive output to avoid letting everything slip away.

In a mission to control the puck, they spent most of the time shooting at Andersen to try and level the game. Through seven minutes, they outshot Toronto 6-1 with Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi contributing. The Maple Leafs answered with a surge of shots that leveled them with Detroit. At 9:11, Toronto made it 3-2 with Alexander Kerfoot getting the puck on Mikeyev shot to the net to gain his second. 24 seconds later, Darren Helm got into a three-man play with Justin Abdelkader and de la Rose into the Toronto zone. On reception of the puck, he got into the slot and shot the puck over the top of Andersen’s glove bringing Detroit back within reach.

Jake Muzzin made it 4-2 with six and a half to play getting a one-timer from Timashov for his first. With two minutes left in regulation, Howard was pulled off the ice for the extra man but it didn’t help. Trevor Moore managed to get ahead of the Red Wings and shoot from far back into the empty net for his third of the season deflating the opposition.